You can get stronger and bigger muscles by lifting light weights until you're exhausted — even if you never lift heavy, which challenges the old idea that heavy weights are required.

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Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

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Acute and Long-term Responses to Different Rest Intervals in Low-load Resistance Training

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

2017 Feb

Even when lifting light weights—only 40% of what you can lift at your max—if you keep going until you can’t do another rep, your muscles still grow and get stronger over 8 weeks, even without lifting heavy.

Contradicting (0)

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No contradicting evidence found

Source Study

Acute and Long-term Responses to Different Rest Intervals in Low-load Resistance Training

Score: 38

DOI: 10.1055/s-0042-119204

Similar Assertions

If you're already someone who lifts weights, doing light weights twice a week until you can't do more reps can make your muscles bigger and stronger in just 8 weeks.

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Even though your body releases similar growth hormones after light workouts whether you rest a little or a lot, you still get stronger and bigger muscles either way.

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Whether you rest 30 seconds or 2.5 minutes between sets of light weightlifting, you end up with about the same muscle growth and strength gains after 8 weeks.

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Even lifting light weights really slowly until you can't do another rep can make your muscles bigger, just like lifting heavy weights.

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If you lift weights until you can’t do another rep—whether you use heavy weights or light ones—you’ll end up with about the same muscle growth after nine weeks, as long as you’re putting in the same effort and number of reps.

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